The U.S. Air Force has abruptly rescinded previously approved early retirements for transgender service members with 15 to 18 years of service, a change advocates say specifically targets trans personnel already being forced out under the Trump administration’s military ban.
The August 4 order voids retirement dates granted under the Temporary Early Retirement Authority, leaving affected service members and Space Force guardians, some just months from leaving the service, facing involuntary separation and the loss of lifetime benefits.
The Air Force cited the “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness” policy, part of President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s broader purge of transgender service members that took effect in June.
Sudden reversal
Master Sgt. Logan Ireland didn’t want to retire from the U.S. Air Force. After 15 years of decorated service, he planned to keep wearing the uniform for years to come. But when the Trump administration announced earlier this year that people like him, transgender service members, could no longer serve simply because of who they are, Ireland was forced to choose what he considered the lesser of two evils. Putting his family’s needs first, he applied for early retirement shortly after the policy change. It was approved.
Then, without warning, the Air Force took it back.
“I had my early retirement orders in hand, already approved by the Department of the Air Force for a retirement date of 1 December,” Ireland told The Advocate. “My wife and I were planning for what that looks like, and my time out of uniform. Everything’s been centered around that date. And then yesterday, the Department of the Air Force came down revoking early retirement without a case-by-case review, without any justification. My retirement orders are now null and void.”
Air Force Master Sergeant Logan Ireland in dress uniform holding his diploma
Air Force Master Sergeant Logan Ireland in dress uniform holding his diplomaCourtesy Pictured
On August 4, Brian L. Scarlett, performing the duties of Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, signed an order “disapproving all Temporary Early Retirement Authority (TERA) exception to policy requests … for members with 15–18 years of service.” The directive, obtained by The Advocate, nullifies approved retirements in that category and offers only two paths forward: so-called “voluntary” separation with enhanced separation pay, an option whose deadlines had already passed, or involuntary separation.
He said he made the decision “after careful consideration of the individual applications,” in the document. However, on LinkedIn, Scarlett announced his new acting position on Tuesday.
A second memo, obtained by The Advocate, from the Air Force Personnel Center to an affected member on August 6 spells it out bluntly: “Retirement orders are rescinded effective immediately,” and the member “will need to process for separation instead.”
Ireland first learned about the reversal from another transgender service member’s social media post. “Ironically, as I’m reading that message, I got a text from my chief saying, I need to come in for a meeting. And I knew exactly what it was for,” he said.
When he walked into that meeting, he said he saw tears in the eyes of his leadership. “I knew this was not something that they wanted. They have been so supportive and have been champions for my service and all of our service within the trans community. But at the end of the day, an order is an order, and they were following it, despite maybe having some emotional ties to it.”
The Air Force memo does not mention transgender people by name, but it cites the “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness” executive order, the same policy framework that, since June, has driven a systemwide purge of transgender service members across all branches. Under that directive, military commanders must identify anyone who may be transgender for a medical evaluation and expulsion unless they obtain a nearly impossible, high-level waiver that requires denying their gender identity.
“This is a core part of who I am, and now it’s just being ripped from me. So being allowed to still retire was a way for me to find closure and was a way for me to look at the Air Force and say, ‘you know what? Despite this policy, they’re trying to do right by some service members and allowing us to retire early.’ But now I feel like I was just betrayed by the same service that once celebrated who I am.”
The decision left Ireland with just two options: voluntary separation or involuntary separation, both, he said, “against my will.” He chose the latter. “That was the best choice for me,” he said.
The reversal affects more than Ireland’s career plans. “It removes the ability to have TRICARE for Life, so our health insurance, that’s so important for us,” he said. “It removes the ability for us to possibly live on base where, as a transgender couple, we feel safe. And then just the other added benefits that come with being a retired veteran, that gets wiped out.”
Ireland’s wife, a transgender veteran, was separated from the Army in 2015 under earlier restrictions. She is a trans woman of color; he is a white trans man. Both have experienced the military’s inconsistent treatment of transgender personnel firsthand.
“Master Sergeant Ireland served his country for 15 years, including multiple overseas tours in locations such as Afghanistan, Kandahar, United Arab Emirates, and South Korea,” Shannon Minter, legal director at the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, said in a statement. “He is highly decorated, with multiple medals recognizing his critical contributions to the United States Air Force.”
Minter expanded in remarks to The Advocate.” The Air Force is breaking a direct commitment to service members who have already been granted early retirement. This is a double betrayal—first forcing transgender service members to leave after promising them they could serve, and now rescinding their ability to obtain early retirement after granting it. The financial consequences are devastating and mean that service members who have devoted their lives to our country receive nothing.”
Safety is never far from Ireland’s mind. His gender marker in the military’s personnel system has already been switched back to female. “When I go to my medical appointments off base and they come out and say, ‘Mrs. Logan Ireland and I stand up, it’s embarrassing. But my safety is a consideration. I don’t know who’s in that waiting room and who’s going to follow me to my car and bring me home. The safety I have is that my home is on a military base. Outside, our safety is up for consideration at that point.”
While they feel relatively protected in Hawaii, where he’s stationed and where a traditional third-gender identity, māhū, is culturally recognized, Ireland said they will remain cautious and plan to stay on the islands at least through the current administration.
As The Advocate reported in June, that policy, implemented after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted an injunction in a related case, has forced thousands into what legal advocates call “voluntary” exits that are anything but. “Honorable and committed transgender servicemembers are being coerced into choreographing their own dismissal,” Jennifer Levi, a leading attorney with GLAD Law, said at the time, calling it “a shameful betrayal of American values.”
The August 4 Air Force order is the latest turn of the screw.
The Department of the Air Force did not respond to The Advocate’s request for comment.
A targeted rollback
“This is targeted to trans service members to pull this option of early retirement for those between 15 and 18 years,” Cathy Marcello, interim executive director of the Modern Military Association of America, told The Advocate in an interview. “Dedicated patriots like Logan Ireland had already been approved, started making life plans accordingly, and now that option is gone. It’s unnecessary, deliberately cruel, and highly disruptive to individuals who would happily continue serving if they could.”
Marcello notes that the memo’s reference to the “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness” policy links it directly to the broader purge. “Like other decisions made about this trans service ban, none of these decisions are actually considering merit or warfighting capability,” she said. “Trans service members are being purged simply based on who they are. It does not make America stronger or safer.”
What TERA is and why losing it matters
The Temporary Early Retirement Authority, or TERA, is a force management tool first authorized in the early 1990s for use during military drawdowns. It allows service members with at least 15 years but fewer than 20 years of service to retire early with prorated benefits, rather than being separated without them.
Under the Air Force’s prior implementation, members with 18 to 20 years could be approved for TERA outright, Marcello explained. Those with 15 to 18 years could request an “exception to policy,” which the Air Force had granted to some transgender service members facing involuntary discharge under the current ban.
“It’s a huge benefit for those who had already served a significant amount of time, but whose careers are being forcibly ended a few years shy of the standard 20-year retirement,” Marcello said. “On August 6, we learned about this new memo that inexplicably ended the exception to policy for those with 15 to 18 years of service, and rescinded it for those who had already been approved.”
For those members, she said, TERA represented more than an earlier-than-planned retirement; it was a way to preserve essential benefits like health insurance coverage, base access, and other benefits.
A choice in name only
Marcello says the Air Force’s offer of voluntary separation with enhanced pay is largely meaningless in this case. The deadline for active-duty members to elect it passed in June, and for reservists in July. “That window has closed, so citing it now as an alternative is misleading,” she said.
Even for those who might have taken the offer, she added, separation pay is no substitute for retirement benefits, and it comes with strings. “The Department of Veterans Affairs recoups separation pay from disability benefits, treating it as debt until it’s paid back. So they won’t get to benefit in the long run.”
Ireland said the decision is already causing upheaval for others in his position. “One day you’re preparing for a dignified retirement; the next you’re being told you’re out, and not on your terms,” he said. A fellow transgender airman and single father, he noted, had already purchased a home, enrolled his child in school, and packed his belongings when his approved retirement was revoked.
Service above politics
Ireland insists his commitment to the Air Force has never been about who occupies the Oval Office. “I serve my country not for the leadership,” he said. “We serve for those that sit to our left and our right. You don’t care who someone is, you care if they can do the job and if they’ve got your back. That’s what matters.”
Transgender service members, he added, have always been part of the military, whether visible or not. “The people you deploy with, the people who hand you your gear, the people who provide your medical care, they might be transgender, and you might never know it. Our service speaks for itself.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with additional reporting.
This article originally appeared on Advocate: BREAKING: Air Force rescinds early retirement approvals for transgender service members kicked out by Trump